Konecki hasn't told Adele what he thinks about the divorce album. "We don't sit around and talk about it. Like 'How you feeling? 'Easy on Me' is at 40 million streams, how are you feeling?" Adele said with a laugh. "He knows what kind of an artist I am and that I have to dig deep and tell my stories."
"Hold On" is about the "exhausting" process of coping with her divorce. Adele gets deep in the song "Hold On" as she sings about being "such a mess" and being her "own worst enemy." Speaking to Winfrey, she explained, "My friends always would say 'hold on' when I would feel like the lyrics in the verse. But it was just exhausting trying to like keep going with it. It's a process. The process of a divorce. The process of being a single parent. The process of not seeing your child every single day wasn't really a plan I had when I became a mum."
Adele's boyfriend, Rich Paul, claims their first date was a business meeting. Adele and Paul have known each other for a few years, though they had only hung out in large groups. The singer told Winfrey that the sports management CEO still claims to this day that their first date was just about business. "I'm like a business meeting about what?" Adele said with a laugh. "And then, it was the first time we ever hung out only on our own, and not go out with friends and stuff like that. So that was a very natural way. I think that's how people would normally meet each other in real life."
Her new relationship is the first time she's loved herself. Adele spoke about the "easiness" of her relationship with Paul and noted that the timing was right for them, considering that she went on a healing journey following her divorce. "It's the first time I've loved myself and been open to loving and being loved by someone else," she said. "But it'd be interesting to see what my reaction is like in general to anything that hurts me now that I feel so secure in myself, and I'm talking outside of romance as well."